Label

• Rianna Mackay, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

We’re labelled. We don’t realise the simple answer to enable us to rip the labels off, so simple, it could create majority of world peace. It could take away racism and sexism and any other ‘ism’ there is.
Why did you label me, make it impossible to rip it off on my own, make it so that others are forced to work together to rip off my label, or yours? Honestly, the government, giving us labels of struggle and dishonesty, taking freedom away, putting my freedom into another’s hands. You’ve missed the point completely, my race, my colour DOES NOT define me so why should I have to put up with a label? Let me ask you a question, Why do babies laugh when another laughs, cry when another cries, why do they not care what you look like? Why don’t they judge? Doesn’t that show you that we’re meant to be together? But no, I keep getting labelled and YOU keep labeling me. Why am I a colour, why aren’t I judged for how nice I am or how loyal or maybe I could’ve been judged for how I love to read, write, play violin. You don’t judge me for my deafness, so why did you judge me for my colour? Why, when you pass me on the streets, why do you automatically slap a label onto me? Without knowing me? You’d think that it’s ridiculous that someone would say that I’m just those things yet you do it every day, and not just to me…
I’m twelve, sure, you’d say that it’s easier to start at a young age but let me ask you, if it’s so easy, why can’t you stop forcing the next generation to label? You don’t start calling people black or white the second you’re born, do you? Are you eager to find out what colour I am right now? It’s at the end. Did your eyes zoom to the bottom? Most people would. Are you one of them? Stop it now, train yourself to stop being so determined to put a label on yourself, on others.
World peace, you can say that it’s never going to happen, sure this may only be part of the solution but it’s a big part and I’d say it’s our first step. I’m going to take that step the first chance I can. As you’re reading this, I’ll have already taken that step. I have, as you call them, black, friends. I hate it when people talk about others that way, saying, “The white chick over there”, “Check out how tall that black girl is” Why? Is it because we believe that labels are impossible to rip off? If we could bring up the next generation to believe that labels are wrong we can be a lot closer than any of us thought to world peace.
White. It’s not me, but it’s who you think I am.